US has no plans to delay future drills

Mattis: Exercises likely to depend on progress with DPRK

WASHINGTON — The US military has no plans to suspend any more major military exercises with the Republic of Korea, the US defense secretary said on Tuesday, amid tensions over the denuclearization issue with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said that “we took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit”.

“We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises,” he said, adding that he would not say when exercises would resume.

“We are going to see how the negotiations go, and then we will calculate the future, how we go forward,” Mattis told a news conference.

Mattis’ comments come in the wake of a cancelled visit by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the DPRK, originally slated for this week.

US President Donald Trump asked Pompeo not to go to the DPRK because he felt “we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”.

Trump, however, tweeted that Pompeo looked forward to visiting the DPRK in the near future, saying he would like to “send my warmest regards and respect” to the DPRK leader and look forward to seeing him “soon”.

Seoul and Washington halted the summertime war games, codenamed Ulchi Freedom Guardian originally scheduled for August, after top DPRK leader Kim Jong-un and Trump held the first-ever DPRK-US summit in Singapore in June.

The UFG is a computer-simulated command post exercise.

Pyongyang has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for northward invasion and a violation of the spirit of the Panmunjom Declaration issued during the inter-Korean summit in late April.

No discussions

Trump met with Kim on June 12, when they promised to build new bilateral relations and work toward a “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”.

After the meeting, Trump said the US would stop war games with the ROK “unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should”.

He also said the drills were “very expensive” and “provocative”.

Last year’s UFG, attended by about 17,500 US military forces, went on for 11 days.

Another major US exercises with the ROK, codenamed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, took place in spring.

The US has made no request to the ROK for talks about the resumption of the drills, which the two allies agreed to suspend as long as dialogue with the DPRK lasts, the ROK presidential Blue House said on Wednesday.

Kim Eui-keum, spokesman for ROK President Moon Jaein, told a press briefing that Seoul and Washington have not discussed the issue.

Asked about the third summit between Moon and Kim, the spokesman said next month’s meeting will play a bigger role in finding a breakthrough in standoff between Pyongyang and Washington.

Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor for Moon, on Tuesday expressed optimism for resumed negotiations between the DPRK and the US in the near future.

Chung made the remarks during a parliamentary committee meeting for the presidential Blue House, saying both the DPRK and the US had a firm willingness toward talks about the denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

He said current situations were different from the past as top DPRK leader Kim and Trump had strong wills to implement their agreement.